As not too long ago shared by Zion Market Analysis, “the worldwide marketplace for pure and natural cosmetics had a worth of roughly USD 21.48 billion in 2023,” and “it’s projected to succeed in round USD 37.44 billion by 2032, with a compound annual development fee (CAGR) of about 7.19% from 2024 to 2032.”
With shopper demand hovering for more and more sustainable cosmetics choices, producers are left to navigate the most effective practices to supply, formulate, and produce merchandise to fulfill their wants – leaving firms open to legal responsibility points surrounding impression shifting and high quality assurance.
To discover these points and extra, CosmeticsDesign interviewed Polina Dekhtyar, Senior Sustainability Strategist at Boston Consulting Group firm Quantis, for her insights.
CDU: Are you able to share some temporary background about your skilled expertise, the corporate, and your relationship with the cosmetics and private care product industries?
Polina Dekhtyar (PD): I’ve spent a lot of my profession on the intersection of enterprise and sustainability. I’m keen about enabling extra sustainable consumption and manufacturing fashions for the merchandise we devour day-after-day, and in recent times, I’ve been notably targeted on the cosmetics and private care {industry}.
After spending a number of years in technique consulting, I joined Estee Lauder Firms, the place I labored on inner transformation and company advertising and marketing initiatives. I wished to work extra straight on addressing the sustainability challenges within the sector, so in 2022 I joined the Cosmetics and Private Care crew at Quantis (a Boston Consulting Group firm), which is a specialised sustainability consulting agency that guides among the largest firms on the earth of their sustainability journeys.
I’ve had the chance to work with among the prime world cosmetics gamers on subjects like eco-designing their merchandise, constructing their local weather methods to contribute to world net-zero targets and decreasing waste. With magnificence being such a product-driven and innovation-driven {industry}, I’m notably thinking about how the alternatives made in designing magnificence merchandise can contribute to total sustainability efficiency.
CDU: What’s impression shifting, and what position do cosmetics and private care product producers and suppliers play?
PD: Impression shifting is when motion taken to cut back environmental impression in a single space negatively impacts one other. As an illustration, if an organization swaps out a carbon-intensive ingredient for an additional one with no holistic environmental evaluation, it might come to seek out that the brand new ingredient might need an equally as unfavourable impression on biodiversity.
Avoiding impression shifting requires product innovators to maneuver past a slim set of goals in the direction of a extra holistic, eco-design method, which goals to restrict total environmental impression throughout a complete set of impression areas. Firms that establish and mitigate impression shifting dangers will future proof their materials selections and velocity up their trajectory towards impression discount.
Cosmetics and private care product producers should higher perceive the holistic impacts of varied uncooked supplies used of their merchandise and empower and upskill their R&D groups to leverage impression knowledge. Producers should additionally collaborate with suppliers alongside their worth chain to enhance materials traceability and cut back impression shifting threat.
CDU: What are among the finest practices for choosing uncooked elements for sustainable beauty and private care product formulations?
PD: There are a number of finest practices for sustainable uncooked ingredient choice:
- Begin by contemplating your formulation and figuring out extremely impactful elements in addition to potential options. Utilizing a Life Cycle Evaluation (LCA) method may help you perceive numerous potential impacts of various ingredient choices and proactively flag trade-offs in formulation design.
- Take an eco-design method to your product design, by integrating sustainability issues all through the design course of and standing up the wanted governance to incorporate environmental efficiency in choice making.
- Work with licensed product and uncooked materials suppliers who adhere to vetted sustainable sourcing requirements.
- Develop strong sustainable procurement insurance policies and monitor and collaborate with suppliers to make sure compliance. This additionally requires constructing transparency and traceability in what are sometimes complicated provide chains.
- Work collaboratively with and help worth chain companions to assist them on their very own sustainability journey (by way of capability constructing or revolutionary financing, as an example) or to deploy finest practices comparable to regenerative agriculture.
- Assist steady innovation by partnering with suppliers growing vetted lower-impact various elements.
By incorporating a few of these finest practices, cosmetics and private care product producers can contribute to a extra sustainable and accountable {industry}.
CDU: What are the dangers related to uncooked materials choice concerning impression shifting?
PD: When fascinated by the sustainability of their uncooked supplies, many magnificence manufacturers immediately focus totally on just a few choose goals, comparable to addressing key shopper traits like pure magnificence or assembly public commitments round carbon or plastic discount. Whereas these are essential targets in themselves, taking a slim view on materials choice and innovation can result in unintended trade-offs in different areas, like water use or deforestation.
We all know that in some circumstances excessive demand for particular supplies can have substantial impacts on nature – for instance, cultivation of palm oil ended up driving 7% of worldwide deforestation between 2000 and 2018, in response to the FAO, and is now a well-known cautionary instance.
Whereas firms at the moment are phasing out or sustainably sourcing palm oil, there are different pure supplies which are rising in recognition and will place native ecosystems in danger. This doesn’t imply that these supplies shouldn’t be used, nevertheless it’s necessary for manufacturers to holistically assess their uncooked supplies choices to grasp potential impacts throughout the board and pay attention to potential trade-offs, to pick the most effective choices total and higher handle sustainable procurement.
That is notably true as regulatory and reporting requirements are evolving to incorporate issues past carbon (for instance, the EU CSRD contains a number of disclosure areas, together with biodiversity, water, and circularity).
CDU: What ought to producers and suppliers take note of when contemplating future-proofing product formulations to adjust to environmental requirements?
PD: At a excessive stage, each manufacturers and suppliers ought to hold updated on environmental rules and requirements related to the {industry}, as these are quickly evolving, notably within the EU. Understanding each regulatory and shopper traits may help firms keep one step forward and transcend compliance to future-proof their merchandise. Given the size of innovation cycles in magnificence specifically, manufacturers ought to suppose forward to maintain their portfolios in keeping with environmental requirements.
As soon as they’re conscious of key necessities and issues, manufacturers can apply strong LCA-based environmental evaluation and eco-design rules to make sure that their merchandise are compliant. Regulatory and shopper traits are additionally more and more pushing in the direction of higher transparency round merchandise’ sustainability efficiency, so having a strong understanding of the merchandise’ numerous impacts may help strengthen shopper communication.
CDU: What are your predictions for future traits in sustainable cosmetics and private care product formulations?
PD: With product use section liable for 40% of the cosmetics {industry}’s environmental impression, a deal with shopper training and engagement is taking root. Aiming to equip customers to make extra knowledgeable sustainability selections, initiatives just like the EcoBeautyScore – an industry-driven harmonized environmental rating for merchandise – are rising.
Moreover, eco-design and circularity are additionally influential themes shaping the {industry}, opening doorways to new alternatives whereas enabling firms to keep away from impression shifting when built-in into each stage of product growth. Whereas circularity rules have traditionally been primarily related to packaging, manufacturers are starting to experiment with renewable, recycled and upcycled elements as nicely.
Lastly, the {industry} is witnessing a brand new ingredient pattern pushed by a push to protect nature and biodiversity, which might open doorways to new lower-impact revolutionary cosmetics elements.
CDU: The rest so as to add?
PD: The sweetness and private care {industry} is beginning to see a shift from commitments and target-setting in the direction of motion. Shoppers, traders, and regulators predict firms to trace and reveal progress in the direction of their targets, and sustainable product design in addition to sustainable procurement shall be key levers for reaching that progress. Firms can due to this fact count on rising scrutiny of their selections.
On the identical time, there may be rising consciousness within the sector that magnificence manufacturers must suppose past carbon and be vigilant about nature impacts, notably since magnificence is each very depending on pure inputs and has vital impacts on nature and biodiversity.
The sweetness sector has innovation in its DNA, and I feel manufacturers can actually harness the ability of that innovation excellence to give you new options that decrease total environmental impacts of their merchandise.
